Many UK travellers take cheap flights to Malaga every year as a great way to get to their southern Spain holidays – but the local tourism agency is urging Brits to make the most of Malaga itself, rather than simply seeing it as a springboard.
The convenient location of Malaga Airport and its link with rail services throughout the Andalucia region mean that it is the perfect transport hub for UK tourists on their way to Cordoba, Granada, Seville and all the other destinations for Costa del Sol holidays.
However, Malaga City Tourist Board and Convention Bureau spokesman Antonio Montejo Romero said that visitors who stick around awhile in the city itself will discover a “real treasure,” with many historical and cultural attractions. For the history buff, there are many castles and cathedrals – some of which are thousands of years old, he said.
“We’re talking about our wonderful momentous heritage from the Romans, the Catholic kings and the Jewish times,” Mr Montejo Romero said. “We have a Roman amphitheatre for example which dates back to the first century before Christ, which is completely restored.”
Malaga city centre also boasts the impressive Alcazaba fortress and city cathedral, as well as the Picasso Museum, devoted to the life and works of the famous Spanish artist. As well as this the recently-opened Thyssen Museum of Andalucian art is currently hosting a special exhibition of more than 60 impressionist masterpieces, including paintings by Matisse, Monet, Miro and Picasso.
The Contemporary Art Centre of Málaga (CAC Malaga) is exhibiting the works of contemporary artist and one of the most influential and admired European artists today – Luc Tuymans– until the 4th of September.
Retratos y vegetación is the first solo exhibition to be held in Spain by Luc Tuymans and covers a selection of 16 oil paintings of different sizes that reveal the technique that has made Tuymans a key reference point for a new generation of figurative artists for whom painting is the optimum means of expression, contrary to those who still consider it a conservative one that contradicts the heterogeneous nature of contemporary art.
Tuymans’s produces work with a sense of tension and angst that unsurprisingly disturbs the viewer such as the Holocaust and the dramatic events of September 11 or the politics of the Belgian Congo. Retratos y vegetación has been organised with the collaboration of the Flemish Representation.
